Supreme Court Allows Trump to Fire Consumer Safety Officials for Now

The Supreme Court on July 23 allowed President Donald Trump to fire three Biden appointees at the Consumer Product Safety Commission for now. The new ruling in Trump v. Boyle lifts a lower court order blocking the dismissals, allowing litigation over the firings to continue in the lower courts. Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from the ruling. In May, Trump removed three members of the commission: Mary Boyle, Alexander Hoehn-Saric, and Richard Trumka Jr., all of whom had been appointed by President Joe Biden. U.S. District Judge Matthew Maddox of Maryland blocked the firings, relying on a statute that he said insulates commission members from removal at will. Maddox countermanded Trump’s decision and ordered the three individuals reinstated. The judge said removing three sitting members of the five-member commission “threatens severe impairment of [the commission’s] ability to fulfill its statutory mandates and advance the public’s interest in safe consumer products.”...